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In the group chat today @Macca89 and I were having a civilised discussion about money (unit @Greboth decide to intervene with a 'mum' joke...) and it reminded me about a post I wrote back in March 2020. I never posted it because after asking @GazzaGarratt to proof read it we both agreed that the timing was poor. Sadly, I think considering the economic climate right now, I should have posted it. However, I am posting it now and I hope it lands well and that it sparks some discussion? I'd love to do a full in-depth post about money and wealth etc but I'm also aware that this is a gaming forum! So...let me know? Enjoy! Covid-19 What can we learn? I’m currently sat in my garden smoking a beautiful Lancero cigar soaking up the sun and reflecting on something my sister said to me this morning. ‘We aren’t getting any wages until May’. With the current global pandemic there has been a real shift back to what I would consider ‘socialist ideals’. People clapping for the NHS and demanding they get more pay and resources, the government offering to cover 80% of wages etc and the outrage of the self employed not getting anything. My sister and brother in law fall into the third category, they are both self employed - a hairdresser and a stone mason. One of my reflections and the purpose of this article is to make people think about their financial security and position because unfortunately the government response hasn’t been what some people had hoped. Here is an unpopular opinion and I apologise if I offend anyone BUT it is not the governments job to pay for you in times of crisis. We live in one of the most prosperous economies in the world, if you aren’t prepared for tough times then you have been negligent. I’m known as the money guy, so i’m going to play that role today and offer some practical advice you can apply once the world is back to normal that will hopefully remedy the opinion I stated above. Firstly, lets start with some of the issues that people have been facing. A lot of people have been laid off as a result of this situation because they are non-essential, others have been home bound and unable to do their self employed job. This has put a serious financial strain on the whole world, people are hurting. Lets examine the reasons why. People are living pay cheque to pay cheque People don’t have any savings People are laden with debt and this is soaking up their financial resources My sister and brother in law both fit all three categories, I fall into the third as I have two mortgages and a car to pay for. The combination of these three issues have meant that even just staying at home for 3 weeks has become a very daunting task for significants amount of people. So what’s the remedy? Well, i’m going to give you some advice that you can begin to put in place after this is all over that will hopefully help you become more resilient to global downturns (I’m thinking about the next recession!). Have an emergency fund I’m sure you’ve all heard of this before but i’m going to spell it out here. You should have 8 to 12 weeks worth of living money saved up somewhere that you can fall back on should you find yourself out of work. This took me a long time to commit too as a younger man but now that I have it, I feel very safe. It’s stored in a cash isa that my wife and I have access to at any time but not with our current banking provider. We both bank with Santander, so it’s in Lloyds. The reason being is that when I log into my internet banking if I see a fair wedge of money just sitting there, i’m going to find a way to spend it. Try to build on this once we get back to something of a normal economy. Reduce your spending and/or save first Again, this one is a tough one because we all generally live to the means we have. When I first started teaching I was earning £800 a month and I spent it all! I’ve been teaching for 17 years and I earn 5 times that now, I could easily spend it all too. This was something I had to help my wife with when we decided to have children because she would get to the end of the month and have nothing left in her account, when we talked about having a baby I suggested that she could save almost £1000 a month (once I took a look at the maths) before the baby was due to make sure we were flush during maternity leave. She didn’t believe me but after a few conversations about making her see where she was wasting money she took my advice. On payday she took £600 (a compromise) straight out of her account and put it in a separate savings else where. Low and behold she managed to save £5000 before the baby was born. What was she missing out on? Takeaways, costa coffees, random trips to shops on the way too and from work. Everyone wastes money, even me - i’m sat here smoking a cigar! Making spending cuts doesn’t have to be drastic but a small change can add up to a big reward. Ice cream in the freezer….. My economics lecturer taught me this saying and it has some truth to it. If I had a tub of ben and jerry’s in the freezer - it wouldn’t stay there long. Like, a week at most? I would eat it, why? Because it makes me feel good! Money is the same, if you have money in your pocket, you will spend it. Companies have become surgical in their ability to separating you from your money. So if you have it to hand you will spend it. So my last suggestion is simple. Have many different accounts for different purposes and only carry the card that you have allowed for disposable income. Here is a list of my accounts for illustration: Barclays Wages - my wages go in here and this is where I pay for my phone, insurances, my car etc. I have set up standing orders on payday that separate my pay into various other accounts and my savings. I don’t carry the card for this account. Monzo - this is my disposable income, every month I transfer in £400, thats £100 a week. I use this account for my petrol and anything else I want. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. Joint account - this is where the wife and I put money in together and its where our mortgage, council tax and utilities come out from. We don’t carry the cards for this account. Teacher discount card - this is a card we load up with £300 a month to go shopping with, we get 3% cash back from shopping at major supermarkets. This is the only card we will use for shopping etc, once it’s gone, it’s gone. This means that all of my savings are in place and I never overspend because I know EXACTLY how much disposable money I have - Monzo is a great bank for that as it’s all online and works well with apple pay etc, even gives you a little progress bar that tells you how much money you have left for a certain period of time and is colour coded. Hopefully this article has been useful and has given some of you some ideas that you could use to make yourself crisis/recession proof. Much love, Elliott

Summer's coming to an end and I'm thinking of doing a GT7 night. Let me know if anyone's up for it and what night they can't do. Thinking of either a Tuesday or Saturday, though could possibly do Thursday as well. In September that is. If we have at least 4 or 5 of us minimum then it's a goer.

There’ a a few days here and there I can’t make but generally pretty free so happy to go with the flow.

I soooo wanted to put a comment up about this Phil but thought "No, nothing to see here, move along" 😘😂😂😂

Yep, if we can sidestep the politics, there's some good financial advice about generally helping yourself here. I know Elliott was trying to help people understand the financial side of this post way more than the other bit. My own experience from my job but also my own life growing up tells me that money will always revolves around 'priorities'. That's where most of us differ because we ultimately see different things in life more or less important than the next thing. You'd be so surprised that how many people out there have a mortgage but don't see it as the highest, top priority to pay. If you don't pay that, you would end up not having a roof over your head or your family. I tend to separate the absolute must direct debits out, get them as cheap as you can but then make sure they're always paid no matter what. Everything else then is optional...but clearly then self-control is needed if you want to start saving alongside spending. There's something about routines in this somewhere. The more regular you can save on a consistent basis means you will also having a spending pattern to match it. Monzo is awesome btw. Functionality is amazing in their app.

Its a gaming site, if you start with the politics you open a can of worms and we don't really need to read you telling people they are negligent. I'm not offended I just find your point of view around the government stupid and selfish. All good with the financial advice but yeah leave out the politics👍

Good read. I will however disagree with the statement 'it is not the governments job to pay for you in times of crisis' when they were the ones responsible for closing down businesses and making it so you couldn't work. However with that being said, I do agree having a fail safe in place for situations like that is a good idea. I personally have a general savings account (one I can dip into if needed), a help-to-buy ISA (only allowed £200 pcm), and a CBS ISA (which I can't easily withdraw from). All of which help me save money in different ways. One of the things I like most about monzo is you can create 'pools' with names of things you want to save towards. I tend to make these pools if I have something small, like a game or event I want to save up for.

This little beauty dropped last week, and if you're a wrestling fan, you really need to check it out! There are many wrestler cameos from the 80s, 90s, and 2000s. The gameplay is a classic RPG style closer to that of super Mario RPG from the SNES. As you attack, you can time button presses to do more damage or negate it on the defensive side. It's been great so far, holding me over until Sea of Stars drops. Only $30 too. It's on everything.

Between the 10th and 17th I'm unavailable but rest of the month I should be free.

This is true enough, I'm certainly guilty of giving my tuppence on plenty of occssions... and to be fair, me spouting off on politics is what we're mostly trying to avoid here, because i could do so very easily multiple times a day, on a daily basis lol

Well said 👏

Great read tbf mate, actually opened a Monzo account the minute I read this! Very informative 💪💪💪

Seen a lot of good things about this game. Girlfriend really wants it.

I feel for Watford fans that's for sure. I was in the bookshop watching the text after Blackburn scored. Talk about a smash & grab. Nice one 😁 As for my lot, three years of pain is being washed away by a team I actually enjoy watching. Early days but when the pundits were writing Spurs off pre-season I kind of felt they were wide of the mark. My Fantasy team is having a nightmare still, but I've promised myself to stick at it this season 🙂